


Getting Dirty

by JunieBug



Series: Spring Marathon Ficlets [3]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 22:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6347683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JunieBug/pseuds/JunieBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's a tease but so is he.</p><p>Frank the pool boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Dirty

“New pool boy?” 

Laurel looks over at Michaela and turns back towards the pool, lifting up her sunglasses to see who she’s talking about. 

The first thing she notices is his arms, strong and muscular, and then his beard. He’s leaning forward and cleaning out the leaves from the pool, a small bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. She watches him wipe it away with the back of his arm. 

“He’s hot.” She hears Connor pipe up from beside her. And Laurel can’t help but agree. 

She pulls down her sunglasses again pretending that she isn’t watching the new pool boy still. But after a few minutes, he pulls off his shirt and throws it over his shoulder. And Laurel is plain ol’ staring at him. 

“Go talk to him if you can’t stop staring.” Michaela takes a sip from her drink and motions towards the guy. 

“If you don’t I will.” Connor sits up in the beach chair and laughs when Laurel shakes her head at him. “Leave her alone guys.” They all turn around to find that Wes is up from his nap, Asher is still in the beach lounger next to him, mouth hanging open, asleep. 

Laurel silently thanks Wes but she knows that Michaela and Connor aren’t going to let it go. “Can we just focus on vacation, please?” She tries to change the subject and it almost works. 

But then the pool boy starts walking towards them. Scratch that, pool man is more like it. 

Laurel subconsciously sits up and places her sunglasses in her hair. “Excuse me miss, you know where the pool supplies go?” 

Laurel can see Michaela and Connor grinning next to her but she ignores them and puts her attention to the guy standing in front of her. He leans on the pool skimmer and Laurel can see the sweat glistening on his skin. 

“Uh, yeah the shed back there.” She points to the shed and the guy follows her finger and nods. But she feels Michaela kick her chair a little and Connor coughs. “I-I can go show you.” 

Laurel gets up and only turns back to glare at Michaela and Connor who are both silently hooting. 

They walk across the pool deck in silence and then Laurel leads him to the shed and unlocks the padlock for him. 

“Thanks.” He walks into the shed and begins to put away the skimmer and the other supplies he has. She leans against the door frame and crosses her arms.

“So, you’re the new pool guy?” She bites her lip, how stupid does she sound right now?

He turns to look at her and her breath catches in her throat when he smiles at her. “I guess you can call me that. Boss man hired me to do some dirty work around his mansion.” 

Laurel scoffs. “Dirty work for him means a lot of things.” The guy finishes putting away the rest of the supplies and suddenly closes the space between them.

“I don’t mind getting dirty.” 

The heat rises up to Laurel’s cheeks. He’s so close to her now but she staggers back a little, just to take a breath. 

“Miss Castillo!” Laurel turns her head to see their gardener, the question he was going to ask her dies on his lips. “Sorry miss, I just needed to check if it was okay to leave.” 

“Yeah, thanks Matt. We’ll see you next week.” The goodbye was quick but when she turns back to look at the pool guy, he’s trying to step around her.

He’s pulled on his shirt again and tries not to look at her, keeping his head down. The air between them has shifted. 

“I gotta go too,” She lets him move around her. “Thank you, Miss Castillo.” 

“Laurel. You can call me Laurel.” She smiles at him and before he goes, he smiles right back at her. And she knows she’s a goner. 

—

The next time she sees him, he’s fixing her father’s car. The Florida sun beaming down on him and his shirt is again off. 

She struts over to him and leans against the old car. She watches him, his brows knitted together in concentration. It takes him a few seconds to even realize that she’s there. 

“Afternoon, Miss Castillo.” 

He wipes his hands on the rag that was draped over his left shoulder. “You can call me Laurel. Miss Castillo is way too uppity.” 

He just smiles at her and goes back to work. “What about you? Got a name pool boy?” She doesn’t know where all this confidence is coming from, maybe it’s from Michaela and Connor’s badgering about the hot pool guy, or maybe it’s the sun hitting her the wrong way but right now she’s gonna take it and run with it.

“Frank, Frank Delfino.” He answers her, peering up over the hood of the car. There’s a still silence and then, “Didn’t know boss man had a little girl.”

Laurel scrunches her face up, little girl? 

“I’m not a little girl.” She crosses her arms and walks around from the side of the car to sit on the front of the car. She’s careful not to sit anywhere he would be working. 

Frank just looks at her for a second and smirks. “Yeah, I can see that.” 

She laughs, actually truly laughs and that causes him to grin at her. Laurel is comfortable, she usually is around most people that work around here but Frank is different. She doesn’t know what it is but she feels okay to just being there. 

“You’re boyfriend is coming.” Laurel is shaken out of her daydream and looks over to whoever Frank is talking about.

It’s Connor. A towel in his arms and his flip-flops smacking against the brick driveway. Laurel is about to correct Frank but Connor speaks up first, his smug grin plastered across his face.

“Lau, lunch is ready.” 

She pushes herself off of the car and gives a little wave to Frank before joining Connor at his side. He ribs her though and she knows Connor’s gonna have his way with teasing her. “Invite pool boy to lunch.”

They’ve both stopped walking and Laurel turns to look back at Frank, who is ducking his head back into the hood of the car. “C’mon Laurel, you obviously like him. I’ll ask for you.” 

Connor begins to walk back over to the car but she grabs his arm to stop him. “I got it, what are we in high school again?” But honestly, Laurel does feel like a little school girl with a crush. She makes her way back over to Frank and knocks on the hood. 

“Hey, wanna join us for lunch? You need a break too and it’s so hot out here.” She’s using her hand to cover her face from the sun and notices that Frank hasn’t even looked up at her. “I’ll pass, Miss.” 

Ouch. 

“Okay, um if you need anything, we’ll be inside,” She hesitates, thinks that maybe she can convince him if he just looked at her but decides against it. It’s already stupid what she’s doing but for good measure she adds, “I’ll have someone bring out a drink for you oh- and like I said, just call me Laurel.”

She waits a second and when she realizes that he isn’t going to look up and acknowledge her, she strolls back towards Connor, defeated. 

—

“Asher! You’re dripping the paint everywhere!” Michaela’s voice echoes throughout the room. Laurel turns her head to find that, in fact, Asher is getting paint everywhere on the floor and if it weren’t for the tarp covers, it would be all over the hardwood.

“We’ve been painting this room for two hours now. I thought your dad was paying people to paint this room?” Asher is whining and Laurel doesn’t blame him. 

She’s tired, not because of the painting, but because everyone has done nothing but complain. 

This fun, bonding painting of the back room of the house turned into a disaster when the rest of her friends decided that they weren’t here to do any dirty work for Jorge Castillo. 

Sure, she had told her dad that it would be a fun activity for her friends but she didn’t really think he would leave it all up to them. 

The paint fumes were also probably getting to her easily hot-headed gang. She placed the paint roller back down in it’s tray and sighs. “Fine, you guys go take a break, I’ll clean up.” 

There’s no complaints there and soon the other four have left her alone in the room. 

Her friends, well her classmates who she considers her friends didn’t really sign up for any work and it actually makes her laugh. Laurel offered up that they all stay at her parents’ place for spring break, that the hassle and stress from their first year at Law was enough to tire them out for a few years. 

And they all said yes. 

If Laurel thinks about school too much her head starts spinning so instead she goes back to picking up the paint roller and going back to work. It calms her, the way the sand colored yellow glides easily against the wall. 

She stays in her own little world for a few minutes when out of the corner of her eye she spots him again.

It’s become a problem or maybe a habit for her to try and find Frank Delfino like it’s some type of Where’s Waldo game.

He’s been here everyday that she’s been here and according to the housekeeper, Frank started the day before they arrived. 

She waits, knowing he has to pass through this room to get into the garage where he probably has to be. 

“Morning, Miss Laurel.”

He still says Miss and it makes her smile. “Hey, Frank. Busy day?” She pretends like she’s working on something, wiping her hands on the smock she has on. 

“Just about to leave for the day. Still paintin’?” He stops in front of the doorframe, leaning up against it careful not to touch the wet paint. 

“Everyone’s jumped ship already, which I can’t blame them. It is spring break after all.” She tosses a few brushes in an empty bucket behind her and Frank walks up to her. “Lemme help.” He grabs a paint brush and tries to toss it in the bucket but misses, splattering paint all over the both of them.

Laurel touches her face and feels the paint over her cheek; her mouth is wide open in surprise but when she looks at Frank he’s trying to hold back a laugh. 

“Sorry! So sorry!” 

But she knows he isn’t serious– eventually breaking out in laughter. She bends forward to pick up a rag from the ground and tries to wipe away at the paint on her face. Frank’s trying to calm himself down and she can’t help but smile. 

“Missed a spot.” His hand reaches out for her cheek and Laurel’s heart stops. His fingers graze her cheek, soft and gentle, and then he suddenly takes his thumb and swipes it across her face and she feels the wet paint smearing over her skin. 

“Hey! Frank!” She swats his hand away but instead grabs it, holding it, the two of them laughing at the mess they are. 

They pause. Laurel’s stilling holding on to Frank’s hand, gripping it loosely but it’s steady. Blue meets blue when they’re eyes connect and whatever words between them die. 

Laurel’s on her tiptoes as she leans into him. At first he pulls away but then, then he leans in too and their lips meet, colliding all at once. Laurel’s let’s go of his hand and her arms wrap around his neck. Frank’s hands find a home on her hips as he pulls her in closer. 

It’s just them. For a moment. Until they’re interrupted.

“Laurel! Laurel! They want to know what you want for lunch! LAUREL!” Asher’s voice reaches them all the way from the kitchen. By now they’ve already pulled apart. “I’m coming!” 

Laurel’s frustrated– what sick joke is their timing? She turns to look back at Frank but he’s gone limp, his arms by his side. She tries to lean in again only to be rejected again. 

Laurel subconsciously messes with her hair, a nervous habit she has. She opens her mouth to say something but Frank beats her to it. “I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’ll see you Miss.”

And Frank all but runs out of the room, leaving Laurel dismayed.

—

Frank can’t lie. He’s been thinking about Laurel Castillo since he first saw her. 

She was in a tiny, little string bikini sunbathing when he first laid eyes on her. He was enamoured with her, letting her help him with the pool supplies even though he already knew where everything went. 

But then he found out who she was, or better yet who her father was. 

And that’s a line that Frank wasn’t willing to cross. Besides, he was way outta her league. 

But then she kissed him, or he kissed her–they both kissed each other. It’s all Frank can think about. Her lips. Her cheeks. Her deep blue eyes. 

How well they fit with each other. How it torments him that he has no chance with his boss’ daughter. 

He ignores her now. But it’s like she purposefully tries to find him–which is a feat in this house. Whenever he sees her, she grows quiet around her friends and they both make eye contact that he has to break. 

He tries to ignore the hurt in her eyes, the desperate looks that she throws him, the way she bites her bottom lip and fiddles with her hair. It’s hard to do, but he does it anyways and goes back to work. 

Today it’s the bathroom upstairs, a broken sink or something. Frank’s distracted when he enters the bathroom, doesn’t realize that the shower was just turned off, that there were clothes on the floor, that someone was in the shower. 

It’s like he looks up at the perfect moment and Laurel steps out of the shower, purely naked. 

“Oh my- what the fuck?!” Frank covers his eyes and backs up. He can’t say he didn’t see anything, he saw everything. 

“I-I didn’t know you were in here.” He stutters, trying to catch his breath. He still won’t look but all of a sudden he hears her giggling. It turns into full on laughter in a matter of seconds and Frank blushes red, cursing himself. 

“Frank, it’s okay! You can look now, I have a towel on.” Laurel is still laughing, it’s taking up the whole room. He removes his hand slowly away from his face and looks over at her. 

“I get it,” She turns from him and walks over to pick up her clothes. “You want to keep it professional. You work for my dad and I’m his kid. It makes sense.” She’s smart, obviously he knew that, but it’s like she’s reading his mind. 

“Miss Lau-” She silences him with a look. “Laurel.” 

“Laurel. I just don’t think ya dad’s gonna be okay with it.” “Okay with what? We aren’t doing anything.” 

He sees the challenge in her eyes as she slowly makes her way to him. He knows that if she continues to look at him like that, to get closer to him like that, that his hands won’t be kept to himself. 

Frank averts his eyes, turns his head, tries to ignore her. He can’t and he shouldn’t. 

“Am I really that bad that you can’t even look at me?” He lifts his eyes to look at her, there’s so much agony on her face and Frank can’t take it. 

He breaks.

In a few quick strides he’s right in front of her, his hands reaching out to grasp her hips. She reads him the same way, tossing the clothes to the ground, and wrapping her arms around him. 

Their lips meet, frantic and breathless. Frank doesn’t care anymore–whatever apprehension he had leaves his body and melts into Laurel. 

They pull away, only for a second. They both share goofy, blissed out grins. “You sure about this?” He asks but with the look he gets, he already knows the answer to his stupid question. 

“Thought you didn’t mind getting dirty.” She echoes his sentiments from a few days ago and Frank chuckles, pulling off her towel and hiking her up to sit on his hips. 

“”Course not.” He carries her into her bedroom, Laurel’s laugh engulfing them.


End file.
